900 Les Miserables
‘To get out!’
‘Yes, Monsieur Madeleine. In order to return here it is
first necessary to get out.’
And after waiting until another stroke of the knell had
sounded, Fauchelevent went on:—
‘You must not be found here in this fashion. Whence
come you? For me, you fall from heaven, because I know
you; but the nuns require one to enter by the door.’
All at once they heard a rather complicated pealing from
another bell.
‘Ah!’ said Fauchelevent, ‘they are ringing up the vocal
mothers. They are going to the chapter. They always hold
a chapter when any one dies. She died at daybreak. People
generally do die at daybreak. But cannot you get out by the
way in which you entered? Come, I do not ask for the sake
of questioning you, but how did you get in?’
Jean Valjean turned pale; the very thought of descending
again into that terrible street made him shudder. You make
your way out of a forest filled with tigers, and once out of it,
imagine a friendly counsel that shall advise you to return
thither! Jean Valjean pictured to himself the whole police
force still engaged in swarming in that quarter, agents on
the watch, sentinels everywhere, frightful fists extended to-
wards his collar, Javert at the corner of the intersection of
the streets perhaps.
‘Impossible!’ said he. ‘Father Fauchelevent, say that I fell
from the sky.’
‘But I believe it, I believe it,’ retorted Fauchelevent. ‘You
have no need to tell me that. The good God must have taken